Organizing Institute

March Institute - RESCHEDULED!

Due to a snowstorm, NEARI is hosting the March Institute in May! May 11-12, 2018, at Whispering Pines Conference Center on the Alton Jones Campus. Designed to develop leaders and build power, learn strategies to strengthen your local. All Institute costs are covered by NEARI. There are two training tracks; new/emerging leaders & advanced leaders.

There are two tracks; one for new/emerging leaders and one for advanced leaders.

Generally, new/emerging leaders may:

Have little or no organizing experience or training

Are new to a leadership position and/or are building representatives

Are ready to take the next step in union involvement.

Advanced leaders may:

Have some experience and training in organizing

Have attended previous NEARI March Institutes or NEA's Northeast Institute

Have been in a union leadership position for a few years

Are ready to take the next steps to explore issues in more depth.

The Institute is an overnight retreat-style learning experience. Participants will be expected to arrive Friday afternoon and stay through the last session on Saturday at 5pm. Accommodations are two attendees per room. Check-in at Whispering Pines begins at 3:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon.

Conference Agenda - 2018

Friday, May 11

3:00 - 5:00 pm

Check In

5:15 - 5:45 pm

Guest Speaker: Andrea James-Gómez, RI for Community and Justice Director of Programs

Introduced by Bob Walsh, NEARI

5:45 - 6:45 pm

Dinner

7:00 - 8:30 pm

Power

We will examine local organizing and advocacy and how we use power currently. We will expand the conversation to understanding power dynamics at play on a national scale and why it is important to scale up and build power collectively outside local actions.We will also explore how members contribute to building power on an individual and local level.

Saturday, May 12

Emerging Leaders Track:

8:00 - 8:30 am

Breakfast

8:30 - 10:00 am

Rethinking Leadership

Most leadership structures have traditionally been very top-down, with leaders performing many of the necessary services for members without focusing on the “Golden Rule” of organizing, but what will leadership look like in a post-Janus state? How will we create space for varying philosophies of leadership—and diverse generations of leaders? How will we identify and cultivate natural leaders and activists, and what is the difference between the two? In this informative and interactive session, we’ll explore traditional leadership structures and participate in Open Space discussions not only around varying philosophies of leadership, but around how we might distribute leadership among members in order to cultivate member buy-in and grow an organizing culture.

We will explore and then practice the foundational tool of any good union leader – the one-on-one conversation. When used well, you can use this tool to recruit members to join the union, inoculate your members against misinformation put out by management, find new leaders and build a stronger more engaged membership.

Facilitators: Mary Barden, NEARI
Vin Levcowich, NEA Chariho

12:00 - 1:00 pm

Lunch

1:00 - 2:30 pm

Organizing Your Worksite

Our power comes directly from our members. To successfully build power, we must engage members and we must understand the issues our members care about.
Organizing principles are the same whether you are trying to invite potential members to join your Association, identify and develop local leaders, rally members to support demands, enlist community help for an issue, or drum up support for a political candidate or platform. In this workshop, we will talk about the critical elements of organizing and provide templates for participants to engage in their own organizing of the workplace.

Facilitators: Jackie Parkins, Colorado Education Association

2:30 - 4:00 pm

Community Outreach and Organizing

Whether we are state employees, higher education faculty and staff, or education support professionals, there is a community that we serve. This session will explore how our relationship with community members can develop into deep organization alliances. We will define the difference between outreach and organizing, examine community organizing efforts across the country, and draw on the trainer and participant experience in the room to identify best practices for engaging allies in our fights. Participants will leave this session with a clear sense of why and how they want to engage with the community.

Facilitators: Marcelle Grair, SEIU Local 509; Patrick Crowley, NEARI

4:00 pm

Debrief

Advanced Leaders Track:

8:30 - 10:00 am

Rethinking Leadership

Most leadership structures have traditionally been very top-down, with leaders performing many of the necessary services for members without focusing on the “Golden Rule” of organizing, but what will leadership look like in a post-Janus state? How will we create space for varying philosophies of leadership—and diverse generations of leaders? How will we identify and cultivate natural leaders and activists, and what is the difference between the two? In this informative and interactive session, we’ll explore traditional leadership structures and participate in Open Space discussions not only around varying philosophies of leadership, but around how we might distribute leadership among members in order to cultivate member buy-in and grow an organizing culture.

We will be looking at why it is so important to be involved in your town's politics and in electing pro-education candidates. This session will discuss tactics for getting started and following through on being a major force in a campaign to create school friendly town councils and school committees as well as identifying allies in your community.

Whether we are state employees, higher education faculty and staff, or education support professionals, there is a community that we serve. This session will explore how our relationship with community members can develop into deep organization alliances. We will define the difference between outreach and organizing, examine community organizing efforts across the country, and draw on the trainer and participant experience in the room to identify best practices for engaging allies in our fights. Participants will leave this session with a clear sense of why and how they want to engage with the community.

My name is Mike Araujo and I have been active in the labor movement since the 1980s. Besides my children, a full commitment to improving the lives of working people has been my central priority in life. My father, George Araujo, is from Fox Point and was the first Cape-Verdean-descended Light Weight World Championship Contender in 1951. He was also the first African-American in the Peace Corp. Additionally, he was a member of the ILA and an organizer for SEIU at Brown University, where he was a janitor. My mother is from Jamestown and has been dedicated to civil rights and fighting poverty and hunger, specifically among Rhode Island’s children. My aunt, Joan Casement, was an early President of NEARI and a long-time Special Education teacher.
Some of my earliest memories are of picket lines and practical solidarity.

I attended MLK and Holy Name for grade school and Our Lady of Providence and Hope for high school. I have worked as a stagehand since the late 80s as well as a union organizer. I have worked on union campaigns from Nuevo Laredo to New Orleans. I have started and helped maintain worker organizations with diverse populations, including some in prisons.

Most recently, I have served as the Business Agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees' Local Union 23. As an officer, I was able to achieve full regulatory compliance and secure long-term funding for our health and welfare fund, as well as our private pension. I believe in good governance and the highest standards of ethics for workers' organization.

I served as a Policy Director and field organizer for Restaurant Opportunities Centers
United, an organization that builds power for those who work in the service industry. I am currently the Director of Rhode Island Jobs with Justice, Rhode Island’s only multi-issue standing working class coalition. Jobs with Justice was called by the Indian National Trade
Union, and the ILO as “The United States’ premier labor rights organization”. I also am the proud father of Xavier George (7) and Eleanor Sparrow (5). I love Rhode Island deeply and strongly believe in economic democracy.

Patrick Crowley

Referred to as “bright and blunt” by The Providence Phoenix, Pat is Assistant Executive Director/UNISERV for NEARI, the largest teachers’ union in Rhode Island. Pat once leafleted a church from the inside during a labor dispute and it was never proven in a court of law that he had anything to do with an anti-privatization strike at a school where that type of thing "might" be illegal. He once made headlines for exposing right wing Governor Don Carcieri’s failure to pay property tax on his luxury condominium in Florida and for chasing then Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee around the State during his 2006 re-election campaign in a George W. Bush mask and a flight suit. A mountain climber in in off hours, Pat enjoys frequent trips to Vermont mostly because of its proximity to the Canadian border.

Marcelle Grair

Andrea James-Gómez

Andrea is the Director of Programs at Rhode Island for Community and Justice. She came to RICJ from the Institute for Labor Studies and Research where she served as Program Director. Prior to returning to RI, she worked as a Program Director at Just Communities of Arkansas as well as an organizer around immigrant rights issues for the Arkansas United Community Coalition. She has over a decade of experience facilitating social justice workshops and dialogue. An alum of Leadership for a Future Class of 2003 and the Latina Leadership Institute Class of 2015, she considers herself a life-long learner and always seeks opportunities for growth. Andrea appreciates creating a safe space for difficult conversation and being a part of others’ journeys towards better understanding of social justice issues.
Andrea James-Gómez has been the Program Director at the Institute for Labor Studies and Research since 2015. Prior to returning to RI, she worked as a Program Director at Just Communities of Arkansas as well as an organizer around immigrant rights issues for the Arkansas United Community Coalition. She has over a decade of experience facilitating social justice workshops and dialogue. An alum of Leadership for a Future Class of 2003 and the Latina Leadership Institute Class of 2015, she considers herself a life-long learner and always seeks opportunities for growth. Andrea appreciates creating a safe space for difficult conversation and being a part of others’ journeys towards better understanding of social justice issues.

Valarie Lawson

Val has been an educator for 27 years. She teaches history and civics at East Providence High School. Val is currently secretary of the East Providence Education Association and she has served in every role in her local union including president from 2008 to 2014. She was recently elected to her third term as vice president of NEARI.

Val is a candidate for office; she is running for State Senate District 14 in her hometown of East Providence.

Sarah Markey

Sarah has been with NEARI since August of 2016, after having been an organizer in the NEA national office for six years. Her work has included organizing early childhood teachers in Massachusetts, leading a national campaign on Time to Teach and the reduction of standardized testing in schools, and piloting Bargaining for the Common good projects where the broader community and labor come together around shared interests. She lives in Wakefield with her sons Milo and Shane and her partner Patrick.

Amy Mullen

Amy, Tiverton teacher and union rock star, has been president of her local union for as long as most members can remember. She enjoys providing training to members because no one at home ever listens to anything she has to say. As a special education teacher, Amy has the patience of a saint, although her behavior outside of the classroom is anything but saintly. Amy has served as NEARI treasurer and is currently the NEA Director for RI and is plotting to take over the world.

Jackie Parkins

Hi - I'm Jackie, and I'm currently a UniServ Director with the Front Range UniServ Unit working mostly with classroom teachers in the Denver metro area. I grew up just outside New Haven and so I'm thrilled to come back to visit you (and my parents) in New England! I've been with the NEA family for 3-ish years, after working on the Fight for $15 campaign talking fast food workers into going on strike, working on a variety of political campaigns for candidates and issues, and I still serve on the national board of 9to5, National Association of Working Women. I'm a social worker turned professional troublemaker and I believe educators have almost unlimited power to make this world a better place, and I am honored to be someone who gets to help make that happen.

Michele Ridolfi O'Neill

Michele is the Connecticut Education Association's Educational Issues Specialist and State Organizer of the CEA Student (Aspiring Educators) Program. Prior to beginning her career with CEA as a UniServ Representative, she taught for almost twelve years in a Connecticut public school district, served as her local union's vice president and president, and represented her county on the CEA Board of Directors. Michele earned two separate teaching certifications while completing a double major in English and history/social science at Eastern CT State University and received her master's degree in curriculum and instruction at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford. She has delivered trainings and presentations for numerous statewide, regional, and national organizations—including Learning Forward and the National Education Association—and serves on the faculty of the Northeast Organizing Institute as well as NEA’s Training Cadre.

Amanda Scott

Amanda is an English teacher at Portsmouth High School, NEA Portsmouth President, and NEARI Region II Vice President. She is a lover of Faulkner and Victorian Gothic literature, but passionate about Freire, Shor, and all things oriented for social justice in and out of the classroom. #resist